A Double-Edged Sword of Personal Branding in a Woke World

By a journalist-turned-PR-warrior who’s seen enough branding to know when it bites back. Everyone today has a brand. My retired school friend in Pune has a YouTube channel about Ayurvedic chutneys. An editor colleague of mine now teaches “storytelling for startups” and refers to himself as a “Narrative Alchemist.Somewhere between deadlines, deodorants, and digital detoxes, we’ve all become the marketing departments of ourselves. I say this as someone who’s crossed the floor more than once—journalist to PR to marcomm strategist. I’ve written headlines that sold cars and cupboards, managed CEOs during their worst days, and coached fresh MBAs on how not to sound like ChatGPT. And in all that time, one thing has only become louder, shinier, and harder to ignore: the gospel of personal branding. On the surface, it makes perfect sense. We live in a noisy world. If you don’t stand out, you blend in. And no one wants to blend in—not even the introverts. So we polish our LinkedIn bios, curate our Instagram feeds, and offer our opinions in 280 characters or less, hoping to trend. It's the new résumé, the digital handshake, the elevator pitch disguised as a TED Talk.But here’s the catch—and it’s a prickly one.In a world that’s not just connected but “woke,” personal branding becomes a tricky dance between authenticity and performance. You’re not just expected to be excellent at what you do; you’re expected to have a well-formed opinion on climate change, caste, capitalism, and croissants. The performance doesn’t end when you log off. It’s full-time theatre.

Take a look at the C-suite stars of India. Anand Mahindra, for instance. His Twitter handle is a masterclass in smart, soft influence. He tweets about innovation, retweets memes, uplifts obscure inventors, and never misses a chance to plug Made in India. Sometimes, people forget he runs an empire of tractors, SUVs, IT, and aerospace. His personal brand is more recognisable than most Mahindra products.Then there’s Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw. She isn’t just the founder of Biocon—she’s the face of biotech in India, a frequent voice on healthcare reform, science policy, and entrepreneurship. Her personal presence often overshadows the very company she built.All of which is wonderful—until it’s not.Because personal branding, once adopted, is hard to put down. You become a walking campaign. Your meals are content. Your opinions are statements. Your silence is a stance. Once you’ve declared yourself a “conscious capitalist” or “empathetic leader,” you’re locked in. Any deviation from that persona is potential damage control.

Even your personality begins to get curated. You start deleting old posts, massaging your captions, muting your spontaneity. You’re not living—you’re rehearsing for social media.And the world, especially the woke kind, is quick to pounce. Values evolve. Language changes. What was forward-thinking in 2017 might be problematic in 2025. One old tweet, one insensitive joke, one poorly timed brand partnership—and you're trending for all the wrong reasons.I’ve seen this up close. I’ve watched founders get cheered for their vulnerability one month, and grilled for hypocrisy the next. I’ve had to help clients apologise for things they didn’t even know were offensive. In a world where the moral bar is high and always moving, being human isn’t good enough. You have to be on-brand and bulletproof.And let's not ignore the fatigue. Constantly maintaining a personal brand is exhausting. It’s like being your own PR team, content agency, and emotional support group. There’s no off button. There are only more followers, more impressions, more pressure. Burnout doesn’t come from overwork anymore—it comes from overexposure.If you survive all that, congratulations. But now comes the monetisation pressure. You’ve built a following. Time to start a newsletter, launch a podcast, sell a masterclass. Your grief? Make it a "5 lessons I learned" post. Your divorce? A podcast episode. Your dog’s death? A reel on emotional resilience.What begins as visibility quickly turns into performance. What starts as connection often ends in commodification.Look, I’m not anti-branding. I’ve helped CEOs, sales managers and even a local Pune politician find their voice and amplify it. But I do believe this: if you have to manufacture your personality for public consumption, you're not building a brand—you’re erasing yourself.Sometimes I miss my days as a reporter, when your byline mattered more than your selfie. When thoughts were edited, not engineered. When stories came from truth, not traction. Today, we often speak not to express but to impress—and the line between sincerity and strategy keeps getting thinner.So yes, build your brand. But don't forget who you are when nobody's watching. Sometimes the most radical thing you can do in this manic, performative world…brand yourself.Just be a person. Not a product.